Forced affordable care

Anyone who reads my blogs has heard me say before that what unites the
left is a vision of an ideal society, and what unites the right is a
vision of an ideal state. The left will take or use any state necessary
to get to that ideal society. At times they will argue for freedom in
the language of the libertarian right; at others, they will defend Big
Government outright. They think that this incoherence makes them
centrists, pragmatists, reasonable, and they pat themselves on the back
for it.

It is this ideology, this willingness to do absolutely anything to bring about their ideal society — a society, by the way, that would be nothing like any society ever actually achieved, one with gay marriage, abortion on demand, and safety net handouts for all who want them — is what drives their vision of the state. They see no inconsistency in arguing for small government one minute, and then big government the next.

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I will make a few predictions about the Affordable Care Act.

Thousands of doctors will retire rather than worry about the new laws, taxes and legal liabilities. Eventually, there won’t be enough doctors to take care of all these people qualifying for free stuff. The money for free stuff will run out.

The next step everyone already knows from looking at Canada and Europe. Waiting for a doctor will be like waiting for bread behind the Iron Curtain. The problem will worsen and worsen.

Unless the whole system simply collapses, we all know the final step: compulsion. When you run out of money and they can’t tax you anymore, they will simply compel you to do it. After the individual mandate, there can only be a doctor retirement ban.

Anyone with a background in early modern political thought can see this coming: All rights have corresponding duties. If you add rights, you add duties. The government has added the right to affordable care, so someone has to have the duty to give healthcare. As that pool of people shrinks, there is only one way to fix it: by force.